1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a recording apparatus that performs at least recording on a recording medium such as an optical disc and a method for the recording apparatus.
2. Description of the Related Art
As a technique for recording and reproducing digital data, for example, there is a data recording technique that uses optical discs (including magneto-optical discs) such as a CD (Compact Disc), an MD (Mini-disc), and a DVD (Digital Versatile Disc) as recording media. Optical disc is a general term of recording media that are discs formed by protecting metal thin plates with plastic and on which laser beams are irradiated to read signals according to changes in reflected light of the laser beams.
The optical discs include read-only optical discs known as a CD, a CD-ROM, a DVD-ROM, and the like and user-data recordable optical discs known as an MD, a CD-R, a CD-RW, a DVD-R, a DVD-RW, a DVD+RW, a DVD-RAM, and the like. In the recordable optical discs, a magneto-optical recording system, a phase-change recording system, a dye-film-change recording system, and the like are used to make it possible to record data. The dye-film-change recording system is also referred to as a write-once recording system. Since data can be recorded only once and may not be able to be rewritten, the dye-film-change recording system is suitable for applications such as data saving. On the other hand, in the magneto-optical recording system and the phase-change recording system, data can be rewritten. Therefore, the magneto-optical recording system and the phase-change recording system are used for various applications including recording of various content data such as music, videos, games, and application programs.
Moreover, in recent years, a high-density optical disc called Blu-ray Disc (registered trademark) has been developed to realize a remarkable increase in capacity.
For example, in this high-density disc, data recording and reproduction are performed under a condition that a laser with a wavelength of 405 nm and an object lens with NA of 0.85 are combined. When a track pitch is 0.32 μm, linear density is 0.12 μm/bit, a data block of 64 KB (kilobyte) is one recording and reproduction unit, and format efficiency is about 82%, a volume of about 23.3 GB (gigabyte) can be recorded on and reproduced from a disc with a diameter of 12 cm.
A write-once disc and are writable disc have been developed even as such a high-density disc.
In a write-once BD-R (Blu-ray Disc Recordable) disc as an example of the blue-ray disc, the recording structure of data and defect information of the disc are managed. Therefore, the disc has TDMSs (Temporary Disc Management Structures) as management information. It is decided to write the TDMSs in TDMAs (Temporary Disc Management Areas) as management information recording areas provided in predetermined positions on the disc. A TDMS written last is an effective TDMS (see, for example, FIGS. 5A to 5D).
Plural TDMAs are provided in a read-in area and a data area on an inner circumference of the disc. Serial numbers are given to the TDMAs in such a manner as TDMAn (n=0, 1, 2, . . . ). It is decided to use the TDMAs in order of numbers such as TDMA0, TDMA1, TDMA2, and the like and continuously record TDMSs in order from the top.
In the BD-R disc, an area in which a TDMA access indicator that indicates which of the TDMAs is effective (i.e., in which of the TDMAs a latest TDMS is written) is written is secured at the top of the TDMA0 (a first temporary-management-information recording area).
In this case, in a state in which the latest TDMS is written in the TDMA0, no information is written on the TDMA access indicator. At a stage when the TDMA0 is exhausted for the update of the TDMS and the TDMS is written in the TDMA1 following the TDMA0, no information is written on a TDMA1 access indicator in order to indicate that latest information is present in the TDMA1. Thereafter, in the same manner, at a stage when the TDMA1 is exhausted for the update of the TDMS and the TDMS is written in the TDMA2, information is written on a TDMA2 access indicator that indicates that latest information is present in the TDMA2.
In FIGS. 5A to 5D, the DMA access indicator at the top indicates whether data is written at the time of finalization of the disc and the disc is finalized.
The TDMA access indicators and the DMA access indicator are introduced in order to reduce disc recognition time.
According to the above explanation, by checking whether information is written on the respective TDMA access indicators, it is possible to check in which of the TDMAs latest information is present. Specifically, when information is written on only the TDMA1 access indicator, since no information is written in the TDMA2, it is possible to correctly recognize the disc by acquiring a latest TDMS from the TDMA1. When information is written on the TDMA2 access indicator as well as on the TDMA1 access indicator, it is possible to correctly recognize the disc by acquiring the latest TDMS from the TDMA2.
When no information is written on the respective TDMA access indicators, latest information is present in the TDMA0 or the disc is a blank disc on which no information is written. In other words, since this explanation is based on the premise that an access indicator corresponding to the TDMA0 is not provided, when no information is written on both the TDMA access indicators, presence or absence of writing in a TDMS writing area of the TDMA0 is actually checked. Then, when it is judged that the TDMS has been written in the TDMS writing area, the latest TDMS is acquired from the TDMA0 to perform disc recognition.
Examples of the related art include JP-A-2006-85859 and JP-A-2006-114107.